Collaborate on a list without emailing multiple copies

December 2011

12/26/2011

CollateBox is your every day web based application that lets you gather data from multiple sources to work on it, get ready online forms to collect & share data from your team members or just stay informed on every activity that occurs in any row or column. Magic, huh!!!

Why should CollateBox matter?

Now anything such as this ought to be really simple. Hence this blog post to cover a few elements that we think makes “CollateBox” really special for you. Here we go…

Speed - “Really fast” – Building for regular web users isn’t easy and the one thing regular users like me look for in a web app is speed. The application works on the “Push” and “Pull” concept over HTML /AJAX with minimal options for page refresh making it one of the first lightest web apps in the world.

White – “Clean” – If white isn’t your color, don’t worry; we have many shades to match your mood and personality without compromising on cleanliness. This web app saves your eyes from the gluttony of content and let’s you work with the most important thing, “Your data” via a clean interface. And yeah – we too love what our friends @ 37signals, Twitter and Facebook are doing :-)

Instant utility – “Right away” - We hate being in places that ask for a whole lot of information before giving something. Load data and we will magically turn your data into an web app :-) Workable, linkable, shareable, actionable…Like it? Go ahead and save your precious time without giving much away.

Social – “Relationship and not roles” – No access or complete access isn’t fair. Someone should talk to Google Docs! We believe trust & security are social factors and cannot be established via strict corporate boundaries. Hence, we let you share and work on your data with whomever, however and whenever you wish. That’s not all; we let your trusted members share further with their members increasing the discoverability of your app (if you wish so…)

Experience – “Media” – Imagine reading RSS feeds without Flipboard? Learning lifestyle without reading Vanity Fair or Vogue? Being social without Facebook? And so on… CollateBox is designed with attitude meant for your boxes of data. Working with data without CollateBox isn’t going to be simple anymore.

Less is good – “Value” – We chopped 32 features to just 3, it wasn’t the easiest thing to do, but we believe it was the most sensible thing to do. “Easier than excel”, “better than Google Docs” and “powerful without programming” – that’s it.

Programmable – “Consumable” – I believe we know the principles well. If it’s not embeddable, shareable, consumable, invoke able over a URL then how can it even be, right? We allow you to gather data from many sources and export it too. And Ooh – we have read/write API’s too :-)

Playful – “Loving It” – Working with simple data and lists is really fun. It doesn’t have to be exactly like Excel L Drop a few pieces of data inside your CollateBox account and we will turn that into a giant transformer or a Jaguar. Share it with your friend and it turns into a talking robot – hehehe!

Personal – “me too” – We have a white headphone like an apple. If you still don’t like the workspace – change everything to personalize it. How about pinning a few elements in the home section of your web app that matters the most?

There are many more things that make us more of a programming tool than your regular data app, but we will reserve them for our next post.

If you like what you hear, give us a your comments and share the link of our app with your friends. We are yet to close our 10,000 beta invite registration to open the gates :-)

12/22/2011

What a year 2011 has been. From ideas to white boards, coffee to calculations, registrations to feedback, the year has gone by in a click.

Before we bid adieu to 2011, we want to take a moment to thank everyone for their support through the year. We've been humbled by the postive response to CollateBox in such a short while and we intend to carry our enthusiam and drive forward in 2012, expand in knowledge and services and deliver CollateBox as the "Simplest way to work with data".

Santa brings CollateBox for you this year!!!

From all of us at CollateBox, we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2012.

12/01/2011

We hinted in a couple of our earlier posts (here and here), that we’re going to be busy spending as much time as possible ideating and understanding the problems that most professionals/small to medium business managers face on a daily basis and how we add value with CollateBox. Part of this effort is constantly introducing us to newer challenges and possibilities of working with this community.

Like Jane’s case, an interesting case we came across recently is that of Jake - a successful wedding planner.

Jake's marriage bureau. Best wedding planner...

“As a wedding planner with lots on his mind, Jake requires planning and scheduling activities, setting monthly budgets in advance and coordinating the activities of vendors, team mates and venue staff. Of course none of this is done today :(

In addition to the scheduled activities, Jake must also provision for unplanned last mile activities such as problems in seating arrangements, marriage licenses, bad weather, etc.

Up until now, Jake has managed to sustain his operations by jumbling multiple Excel sheets & to-do paper lists and collaborating over phone calls. However, with the rush of the current wedding season, his laptop is full of Excel sheets with ad-hoc data that need to be consolidated and streamlined. Additionally, his phone is ringing non-stop with requests for work, status updates and reminders.”

Jake lacks a simple solution for managing his business data and activities:

Simplify the process of collecting data and planning activities

Create and share action lists

Track budgets based on different parameters and ensure you are within limits

Manage operations at different locations without having to be physically present

The more we converse with professionals and SMBs, the more we realize that there is no single tool that allows a SIMPLE way of doing business. Stay tuned; we’ve got many interesting conversations coming your way and a SIMPLE solution to the collation problem too.